West Ham manager, Slaven Bilic, believes that Andy Carrol’s goal against Crystal Palace was better than either scorpion strike from Olivier Giroud or Henrikh Mkhitaryan.
“That was a perfect goal. This was like for a book – when you have a page for a great scissor-kick goal, you would have it go in a corner and that was exactly what he did,” Bilic said at a press conference this week.
“For me, this was a better one because those goals that they scored, they were magnificent but they were a little bit lucky.
“They had nothing to lose, the ball was there, they thought, ‘Let’s try it’ and suddenly they are celebrating.
“Andy’s was planned from the moment the cross came in.”
I’m not overly sure the point he is making is a correct one.
All three players saw the ball coming towards them and, in an effort to score, attacked the ball. They all ‘planned’ it when the cross came in – they couldn’t plan it before or after. You also have to ask how much ‘planning’ is involved in the 3 seconds from the cross was put in until all 3 players made contact.
So how is there any more luck involved in a scorpion kick than a flying scissor kick?
Perhaps I’m being churlish, after all, you never want to be ‘outdone’. Can’t we just appreciate all three for their individual merits while, of course, always remembering that Mkhitaryan was offside?
Here are all three again. It’s worth mentioning, again, that all three players had roughly the same amount of time to consider what they were going to do as the ball came towards them (count the seconds).
Andy Carrol
Andy Carroll + a bicycle kick = one of the greatest goals in Premier League history. pic.twitter.com/BJwHyGKx3X
— West Ham Central (@WestHam_Central) January 16, 2017
Olivier Giroud
Henrikh Mkhitaryan
https://twitter.com/TheFootballRep/status/819907356574285824